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Story Highlights

The days of dipping into its endowment to cut deficits are done, vows the president of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Six months into a five-year plan for financial stability, the RPO has increased ticket sales, enjoyed its biggest single month of fundraising and will finish fiscal 2017 with a balanced budget, according to Ralph Craviso.

“The last year we will have drawn on the endowment is last year,” Craviso said in explaining the shortfall reported in the RPO’s 2015-2016 annual report.

For the fiscal year ending Aug. 31, 2016, the RPO had an operating deficit of $2.2 million. Because it funded shortages in cash flow from its endowment, the orchestra ended up $634,000 in the hole.

It was a reprise of fiscal 2015, when the RPO faced a deficit of $1.4 million but went to its endowment as well and received significant bequests that allowed it to declare an operating surplus.

“What Fiscal 16 was about was planning, what it is we need to do to put our financial house in order,” said Craviso, also the organization’s chief executive officer.

Craviso, who had the interim prefix to his title removed shortly after being appointed in October 2015, said the financial plan allows the RPO to reach and maintain balanced budgets.

As a sign of the upswing, Craviso said ticket revenue has increased by 17 percent over last year.

“That is highly significant,” he said.

The RPO also gained $550,000 that did not include matching funds during a campaign in December. The RPO also is raising $5 million, of which $1 million will become a rainy-day fund that is separate from its endowment. Craviso said the endowment is approximately $13 million.

The plan also reinvigorates fundraising, which Craviso calls a “fundamental lifeline of the orchestra,” by letting donors know how much they matter and thanking them for their gifts.

“You give people a reason for wanting to give,” he said.

Craviso said the RPO is increasing the number and types of its concerts under music director Ward Stare. For this 2016-17 season, it added philharmonic performances and it continuing to move beyond standard classical fare to draw a different audience to Kodak Hall at the Eastman Theatre.

Among the five special events this season were a performance by superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma; the music of Raiders of the Lost Ark; a symphonic rendering of music from the video game The Legend of Zelda; and a night with singer Amy Grant.

Craviso said he’s not necessarily expecting people who attended those shows to come back for a classical performance. But he is planning to bring them back.

“We’re repeating the programming in order to repeat the same kind of audience we’re attracting,” he said. “… We certainly expect the kind of person who would buy a ticket to see Amy Grant would buy a ticket to see (Broadway star) Audra McDonald.”

Two pops concerts next season are music from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

“Ward gets it completely,” Craviso said. “He is in support of it. Even as we’re doing this, we’ve increased the number of philharmonics weeks by two.”

The RPO also has added music from opera, which Craviso said is one of Stare’s interests.

Speaking of the maestro, Stare is under contract through the 2018-19 season. Craviso said it was too soon to talk about an extension, but “I’m pretty confident Ward will be part of the RPO.”

Craviso said the five-year plan encompasses financial recovery and plans for the RPO centennial in the 2022-23 season and launching the next 100 years. “Ward, I’m sure, will be a part of that planning process.”